France: 30 000 iPhones sold in 5 days
French mobile phone operator Orange sold 30,000 iPhones in the five days following its November 29 launch, the company said Wednesday. In comparison, German operator T-Mobile said it sold 10,000 on November 9, the day the phone went on sale there. Apple’s U.K. partner O2 said the phone is its fastest-selling ever, but refused to give sales figures. Some 80 percent of Orange customers bought the iPhone with an “Orange for iPhone” service contract that includes unlimited access to the Internet and the Visual Voicemail service. Those customers paid €399 (US$585) for their iPhone, the same price T-Mobile charges for its iPhones. Orange also offers the iPhone for €549 with other types of contract, or €649 without a contract.
About 1,500 were sold without a contract, said Orange spokesman Louis Michel Aymard. Customers buying an iPhone from Orange for use on another operator’s network must pay a €100 unlocking charge, which is waived if they wait for six months from the purchase date. Since an iPhone without a contract is of little use on Orange’s network, the majority of those 1,500 customers have probably unlocked their phones, Aymard said. Orange is now the only one of Apple’s network operator partners to sell the iPhone unlocked. It does so to comply with a French law that forbids making the sale of one item conditional on the sale of another. T-Mobile briefly offered unlocked iPhones for €999 to comply with a temporary court injunction. It had been sued by rival operator Vodafone, which claimed that selling the phone tied to a two-year contract breached Germany’s consumer protection laws. On Tuesday, a court in Hamburg rejected Vodafone’s complaint, giving T-Mobile the go-ahead to sell the phone bundled with a contract.
Source: PC World
Comments(19)
I had a go with the iphone, and I seriously cant see what the fuss is about.
Wow what a great news post.
I got one and I love it. Haven’t made/received a single phone call with it yet though..
I personally like my fone to be a fone as long as it does what it says on the tin.I don’t need anything like the i-fone i won’t follow the hype a fone is a fone afterall.
orange dont sell iphones o2 do
austria : 50 iphones (sold for 999€) -> 4 hours sold out lol
more will come next year 
BUT .. i don´t get it ;p
At this current moment we are playing 1000$ for an iphone in denmark – so f*ck you all if you say 500$ is expensive
.
I ordered mine unlocked from ebay – 550$.
Ups did i say 1000$? It’s 1200$. (6000 kr.)
Since when did we start caring about what happens in France?
First iPhone in europe right?
and..
In before “Is it better than Halo 3?”
And Wankstar, you are getting ripped off. A guy at DTU sells em for 4800kr.
9: no idea and i don’t wanna know.. the truth is that france suce mais grave… j’vous jure…
@12: you can’t translate “sucks” with “suce”, it’s wrong =] (”sucer” is often used as slang for “sucking off” or “going down on someone”)
Oh well, it actually works too!
Lacolo: I know – but the officiel price in denmark is currently 6000 dkr. I got it for 3.300 from ebay.
Forget the iphone its for imorons, youll be stuck with apple$ DRM, better off going for an LG voyager basically the same phone with an added qwerty keyboard and its cheaper.
@5: O2 doesn’t exist in france I think.
way to expensive for me, I can’t wait for nokia to come a sh!t all over the iphone they need some competition.
13: je suis francais et je fais ce que je veux avec la langue francaise =P
je sais que c’est wrong mais ca sonne tellement bien et con en meme temps…
Id rather get that new Samsung 800 serie phone with exquisit cam.